My mother was gone, but so was I. It felt like I had disappeared from my own life. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Every time the phone rang or the front door opened, I thought it was her. I couldn’t sleep. I forgot the taste of the foods I loved. I couldn’t remember the sound of my voice. It had been so long since I heard my own laughter. It felt like all of my emotions were just stuck, frozen in a time I longed to escape. I couldn’t move. The world began to pass me by.
There’s only one way I made it through: that damn basketball. I went to Lincoln Park nearly every day for two years. I poured every bit of energy I had into basketball, whether it was a pickup game, an organized tournament, or one-on-one. My handle became second nature as there was rarely a moment that worn-out basketball wasn’t in my hands. I crashed the boards with abandon, using my height and leaping ability to smash opposing players’ shots into the fence. I was determined to beat people off the dribble as if my life depended on it. And in truth, maybe it did.
My court vision, which would ultimately become the key to my game, began to sharpen. I could see passing angles even most adults couldn’t. I thrived when it came to setting up my teammates. Touch passes, crosscourt finds, no looks. Every type of behind-the-back setup. I was getting pretty good, but I loved to play with the New York flash like the ballplayers who came up on these streets before me. To me it just felt like the natural thing to do.
And, not least important, by the time I was fourteen, I had grown to be six two, just one inch shorter than my father. I was ready for the next level: New York City high school basketball. I told myself that’s where I would make my name.
In the fall of 1993, I enrolled at Christ the King Regional High School in Queens, about ten miles from my house. I was thirteen and ready to make new friends and leave my pain as far behind me as I could. Even though I was an average student and didn’t care for structure or homework, high school seemed as good an adventure as any.
CTK had a multicultural student body with a strong academic standing, and as a member of its thirty-first incoming freshman class, my grandmother liked the idea of me being surrounded by academically inclined students. Its basketball team was a powerhouse in the best high school basketball league in the country: New York City’s Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA).
Students were assigned to homerooms alphabetically by last name. That was my first stroke of luck. I didn’t know it, but that policy would ultimately affect me for the rest of my life.
The school day started at 8:15 AM with a twenty-minute homeroom, which was just an excuse for my friends and me to clown each other. Nothing was off-limits: the outfit you wore two days in a row, personal hygiene, or whether you were in dire need of a shape-up. Well, that’s what happened when I didn’t show up late, anyway. I almost always showed up late.
But during that very first homeroom, I sat down in the middle of the classroom several rows over from a pretty Puerto Rican girl named Liza Morales. She looked away when I made eye contact. I flashed a little smile, and she returned it with an embarrassed grin. I knew I had to talk to her. Maybe I was going to like high school after all. The teacher was jabbering on about some important announcement, but I already had my head in the clouds.
One morning, before homeroom, I was standing at my locker, running late as usual, brushing my teeth.
“Why are you brushing your teeth in the hallway?” Liza asked me. “Don’t you have a home?”
“You know I gotta be fresh for the ladies.”
“Oh, please.”
I started flirting with her. She always rolled her eyes, which I took as a sign she was interested. She never shut me down completely, and she punctuated her quips with a cute little laugh. I really didn’t like going to school, but she gave me a reason to show up.
“You talk to too many girls,” she would say. “Why you always talking to those chicken heads?”
“Don’t worry about them. We were meant to be together.”
But the truth was, we were complete opposites. She was always early. I moved like I didn’t own a watch. Her locker was as neat as could be. Mine looked like a proving ground for tornadoes. Her grades and attendance were perfect. I rarely did homework, and I was absent so often my existence was merely a rumor. She wasn’t into sports, ran with a totally different crowd, and thought I was only interested in one thing. Well, I was interested in that, but the truth is, no matter how different we were, I really liked her.
So, I started going to homeroom on time. Every day I sat one desk closer to her. I’d throw balled-up pieces of paper at her to get her attention. But when I did, she’d turn to look at me, and I had no idea what to do next. What could I say? I was fourteen, and I had never talked to anyone the way I wanted to talk to Liza.
Liza grew up in Woodhaven and took the Q11 bus up Woodhaven Boulevard and transferred to the Q54 to get to school. I’d usually get on the Q54 a few stops before her. I’d sit in the back of the bus trying to sneak looks at her, maybe get a smile and think of something funny to say by the time we got to homeroom.
I loved the ladies and they loved me, which is probably why Liza kept her distance. It was a little too much for her, being a good Catholic girl and all. Though sometimes I would gently take her hand and say with a flirty smile, “When are we going to hang out?”
“When you stop running around with all those other girls,” she’d reply.
“I’m waiting for you and you alone.”
She smiled.
High school had gotten off to a great start, but basketball tryouts couldn’t come fast enough. Even though my mom wasn’t there to offer her usual encouragement, I told myself that everything I did on the court would be for her. I made the freshman team, and after some strong games, the head coach, Bob Oliva, moved me up to varsity. Even though I felt I could compete, I didn’t get a ton of run because the team was just so stacked.
There was a skinny freshman from the rugged Farragut Houses projects in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, named Erick Barkley, who I knew from the neighborhood. He was lightning quick and had the kind of maturity on the basketball court that college coaches were already starting to notice. Once he scored forty-eight on the future NBA star Stephon Marbury, who’d go on to win Mr. New York Basketball my freshman season. But Steph did give him forty-four in return. Oh, I forgot to mention that this epic showdown happened when Erick was nine and Steph was eleven. As an only child, I was always fascinated that Erick was the youngest of nine children. I think that’s one reason why I gravitated toward him.
Erick was getting recruitment letters from St. John’s and was a tough cover for anyone. We’d play one-on-one before and after practice and just throw everything we had at each other. Going against Erick, even more so than the games I played, helped develop my ability to dribble against pressure and get shots off against tough defenders. It was a crash course in becoming a tough New York City guard and I was only fourteen.
Then there was sophomore Speedy Claxton, a blur of a point guard from Hempstead who even might have been faster than Erick. And much like Erick, Speedy was from a large family of seven brothers and sisters. The team was so tight that Erick moved in with Speedy’s family during his senior year.
We all were just family. That Christ the King team my freshman year included three future NBA players in Speedy, Erick, and me. But we were still kids. Speedy and Erick were both more accomplished than I was, and it wouldn’t be until the following season that the course of my life and career would change drastically.